Integrating Rehabilitation and Palliation in Cancer Care

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The number of cancer survivors is growing steadily. Whether cancer patients are recovering from palliative surgery, are in remission, or are cured, they often need rehabilitation care and symptom management. As the field of palliative care broadens its definitions to include care of all illness related suffering, moving 'upstream' beyond hospice care, opportunities to collaborate between palliative care and rehabilitation medicine will also multiply. Although both fields stress interdisciplinary care and innovative approaches to maintaining quality of life and functional status, palliative care and rehabilitation medicine are often thought to be at cross-purposes. There may be the belief that a patient in rehabilitation cannot be a patient with palliative care needs because he or she is "recovering." Or it may be felt that a patient in palliative care cannot be a patient with rehabilitation needs because he or she is "dying." Because of this, it is crucial to consider how the disciplines of rehabilitation and palliative care overlap. This five-year series of annual conferences will foster an important dialogue between these two fields at Northwestern, in Chicago and we hope on a national basis. The objectives of the conferences will be to: 1. Describe approaches to palliative and rehabilitation medicine to enhance survivor care by educating physicians, allied health personnel and clinical researchers; 2. Demonstrate parallels and contrasts in clinical care, ethical issues and social needs between patients in palliative and rehabilitation medicine; 3. Identify opportunities for collaboration between palliative medicine and rehabilitation medicine in order to create and nurture a network of colleagues in establishing clinical relationships and collaborative research for palliative and rehabilitation medicine. Each conference will focus on two clinical syndromes common to patients with cancer and seen in rehabilitation and palliative medicine. In the first year, this will include pain and functional decline. The conference will explicitly examine the clinical, ethical and social issues of these syndromes. Faculty will include physicians, a nurse, a psychologist and a social worker who work, teach and conduct research in rehabilitation and palliative settings.